New to the CAA, Paul Hewitt likes what he sees

Adam Stern
Executive Editor
Commonwealth Times Sports’ Twitter

There once was a time in college basketball where the notion of a high-major caliber player getting plucked out of the stream by a mid-major school wasn’t just unlikely, it was unheard of.

Yet as schools like, say, VCU and George Mason, have proved, those days are long gone.

Similarily, it didn’t used to be so common for a coach who plied his trade in the venerable Atlantic Coast Conference for over a decade and took his team to a national championship game to drop from the high ranks ostensibly down to a mid-major conference.

In fact, that one still isn’t.

But that’s the position first-year George Mason head coach Paul Hewitt stepping into. Trading one big metropolis for another in Atlanta to D.C., Hewitt isn’t neccesarily trading one big conference for another depending on who you talk to. But a few months into his tenure, he certainly seems to like what he sees.

“There was a time where guys would go to sit on the bench at a high-major program but those days are over,” Hewitt said. “Kids want to play.”

“There’s so much parity in college basketball now, you’ve got players coming from all over the world to play, and kids are looking for playing time,” Hewitt said.

And what does he think of the CAA teams thus far?

“It’s probably deeper than three or four (teams who will be competing for the top spot),” Hewitt said. “I hear Northeastern is going to have a pretty good squad this year, I hear Delaware’s a team that’s up and coming. Obviously ODU and VCU are very very good but it’s going to be a competitive league.”

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